With Good Intentions
by Antigone6
Summary: Harry has a story to tell. Do you want to hear it? Draco/Harry SLASH. Please Read and Review


To really understand...for you to really get the meaning of the story I want to tell, we have  
to go back. Way back, four years to my final year at Hogwarts. After I defeated  
Voldemort, after my two best friends were killed, after almost everyone I truly loved  
disappeared mysteriously or died fighting at my side. And my return to school, but scar  
never burning anymore, and I was empty. 

Everyone said I looked paler than usual, thinner. Lavender, her pretty face marred with a  
long scar, asked me if I had been eating, when she saw every day that I skipped meals, or  
else pushed my food around, not caring. The school had dwindled to two tables of mixed  
houses. the Slytherins still kept to their own circle, but they now only took up maybe a  
quarter of one long table. I noticed changes in them, too. More so, even, than in people  
from other houses. For the Slytherins weren't just battle-scarred, they were oddities. The  
few Slytherins that hadn't crossed over to the dark side were sore thumbs, no one had  
expected any of them to remain at school, let alone fight on the good side.

And the one that stood out most of all, Draco Malfoy. I took to watching him. He was  
taller than the last time I'd seen him in Cheltingham, half-carrying a muggle, his robes  
ragged. He'd handed the injured muggle over to the medics, and I caught his eye. He had  
nodded, then ran off, wand drawn, as an explosion rocked a muggle building one block  
over.

He was broader in the shoulders, his hair was longer, and his eyes were darker. He carried  
that haunted look we *all* had. I felt guilt with every glance at their faces. I was meant for  
this torture, for dealing with the forces no one else should have had to see. But they had  
been dragged into a war that picked off several of their professors, one by one. They were  
like the holocaust victims we studied in muggle school when I was young. They would  
never look the same, I and I knew it was my fault. 

New professors, straight out of school most of them, hailed from Durmstrang,  
Bauxbatons, and an American school of wizardry called Hamilton. The only remaining  
professors were Snape and McGonnagal. And while Dumbledore lived, he would never  
return to Hogwarts.

But really, I didn't notice my new teachers, or the transfer students from Hamilton that  
had been shipped to Hogwarts while repairs on half their school were being done. I really  
didn't notice anyone but him.

Draco and I hardly talked during the war. We had to reason to, we were busy fighting and  
I was especially busy working with Ron and Hermione. But he did speak to me at their  
funeral. He stood next to me after the service, after I was alone to stare at their fresh  
graves--this was just after the war had ended, after we could *have* funerals--and he  
spoke.

They loved you. More than anyone has loved anything, they loved you.

And I had looked up at him and I tried to say something, anything. But the words caught,  
and I could only choke on my own tears and pain and nod. 

Then, at school, I remembered those words, and I watched him. I never expected to  
actually speak to him again, until he appeared one night in the astronomy tower. I had  
been going there, night after night, remembering sneaking up to set Norbert free,  
remembering classes with my friends...hating myself. I didn't think anyone knew. But then,  
one cold night in January, he appeared like a pale ghost in the doorway.

Potter, what do you think you're doing, it's freezing. He muttered, stepping into the  
circular room, arms hugged to his robed body. I was seated in an open window, not really  
feeling the cold.

What do you want? I demanded, not meaning to sound so accusing, but old habits die  
hard I suppose.

What are you doing?

I'm thinking.

What about?

I glared at him then, What do you think?

Draco was silent and I turned back to the window. I thought he had gone, left me to my  
inner torment, when I heard his voice, You can't hold on to them forever. It's nearly  
been a year.

I was off that window sill in a flash, And what would you know about it?

He didn't flinch or step back, Maybe nothing. But you're a walking skeleton. You're a  
shadow, Potter.

Maybe this is what I want. I spat back, but the tears were in my throat already and my  
voice was choked. I cursed at myself inwardly, cursed my own weakness, angry that I was  
on the verge of tears in front of Draco Malfoy--not my enemy, not my friend.

Is it really? 

And I was surprised, because his voice was so soft and he looked so human, and real. I'd  
never seen him that way. Cold, spoiled, arrogant, yes. And during the war, I had seen  
brave, and intelligent. Never caring. Ever. And this is what set me off, I believe, and those  
tears just came.

I just want it to stop. I sobbed, not caring anymore if I looked like an idiot because once  
the floodgates opened, there was no closing them, I killed them. Everyone says it's not  
my fault but they're wrong. I *killed* my best friends. I hate it, and I want it to go away.

He was closer now, one hand on my shoulder, and maybe he was holding me up, I don't  
know.

Can you make it go away? I asked in a whisper, Can anyone make it...

Draco Malfoy wiped the tears off my face, and though I was still sobbing, the saline was  
gone from my eyes. He was gentle, and he looked me in the eye. And I repeated my  
question Can you make it go away? And I kissed him, hard. I don't know what I was  
thinking. Maybe I wasn't thinking at all. Who really knows. But I smashed my lips to his,  
and the hand on my shoulder tightened as my tongue found his and he started to kiss  
back--before pushing me away.

This isn't what you want. He said gruffly, wiping his mouth.

Yes it is.

No. You want comfort. I can give you that, but I won't. I won't give you the easy way  
out, Harry. Draco began to walk away, When it's me you want, when it's not just  
comfort and some sick escape...then...then.

I watched him leave, my lips just a little bruised, and I hated myself just a little more.

The only reason I tell you this part--this part that doesn't really make me look good--is  
because you need to see. I wanted him first because I needed an out. I wanted him  
second...well, that brings me to a month later. I slipped him a note at breakfast. I had been  
eating, not a lot, but more than I had before. I was trying, so hard, to go back to what I  
had been before, including studying. It wasn't quite working, but it would. The day that I  
slipped him the note, I had owled the Ministry about setting up a foundation. I had no idea  
what I would do with it yet. Just that it would be called the Granger/Weasley Foundation  
and that it would raise money for the rebuilding of what we had lost in the war. It was  
something I had been working on since a few days after my embarrassing attack on Draco  
in the astronomy tower--which is where I had told him to meet me.

So, that night, at midnight, I waited in the tower. It was cold, colder than that night a little  
over four weeks ago. I was dressed in clean clothes, I had attempted at brushing my hair,  
and I wasn't brooding. Still thin, still pale. But working on it. Periods of self-loathing  
came and went, they still do. But this was a good night, a night when I was going to show  
him something.

When Draco showed up, he moved with an uncertainty towards me.

You wanted something?

I said, my mouth suddenly very dry. But I did what I had come to do--I leaned  
forward and kissed him lightly on the lips. You said, that when I wanted something other  
than comfort, I could...

He laughed. I hadn't heard a laugh in so long...it was beautiful. I did say that didn't I?

You did.

You look better, Potter.

Yes, I know. I replied cockily, and it feels so good not to be mired in a pit of self-pity  
and hatred.

He kissed me back, softly, and touched me. 

This isn't even the story I want to tell you, but it's important. We made love that night,  
and it was...weird. Not at all what one would expect--it was awkward and fumbling and  
even he was nervous, which was yet another first for Draco Malfoy. But all the same, I  
wanted it, and it was good.

The story I want to tell you, it's about what happened next, it's about what magic does in  
that bleary time after a war when good has won but bad still exists. And how it screwed us  
both up--again.

But the question is. Do you really want to know?


End file.
